Quote:
Originally Posted by wave46
It's hard to say whether amalgamation is a bad thing.
Certainly, there are dozens of little 'cities' of a few blocks each in New Jersey near New York City that might function much better as a single city.
Would Winnipeg have weathered the 1980s and 1990s as well if its well-off citizens could flee outside of the old city's limits into the dozen smaller cities and starve the city of revenue, a la Detroit?
The Ontario amalgamations aimed to remove a whole level of government, which didn't work because, uh, the responsibilities of that government still existed. So, when the Region of Sudbury became 'The City of Greater Sudbury' all the Regional stuff still had to be taken care of. It might have made certain things simpler (Regional plows used to have to raise their plow blades when they weren't on "regional" roads, which made locals wonder) but it made other things much more complex.
That's why the 'City of Ottawa' encompasses a pile of farmland outside the City that doesn't really share the character of the city itself. Whereas something like Nepean is basically contiguous with the City and probably should be a part of it.
Interestingly, the City that might have benefited most from amalgamation might've been Kitchener-Waterloo, but coincidentally (wink, wink) they were spared that pleasure.
|
There's definitely no universally correct answer on whether amalgamation is good or bad, as it for sure depends on context. As I touched on in my earlier post, socioeconomic diversity is one of the benefits of larger cities. The Detroit example is an excellent case in point, and it's possible Winnipeg could have seen something similar, though likely to a lesser extent. At the same time, all the sprawl Winnipeg keeps building will hurt the city's longer-term finances, whereas an inner-city Winnipeg would be saved from this, so it gets complicated.
I do agree with your point though. In Metro Vancouver, the municipalities with the largest poor/working-class populations also have wealthier areas to balance them out (Vancouver, Surrey, to a lesser extent Maple Ridge). If this wasn't the case and there were municipalities burdened with high service demand and low fiscal capacity, then amalgamation may be appropriate. This brings back the point though that, region-wide housing affordability issues aside, virtually every municipality in Metro Vancouver is thriving. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.